Captain America and Wonder Woman, Anti-Fascist Heroes
Who needs black clothing to fight fascism when red, white, and blue will do quite nicely?
Diane di Prima
The Italian American poet and artist's “willingness to speak” about what was culturally unspeakable was a liberation.
The D-I-Y Origins of Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead’s production story reads like a means to an end: a rag-tag group of creatives makes a movie on nothing to get noticed.
The Poem That Inspired Radical Black Women to Organize
Beah Richards is best known as an actor, but in 1951 she wrote a sweeping poem that influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
Halloween Stories
Why are Victorians the default haunted house, what do ghosts have to do with the imagination, and why do we like to be scared?
Nine Black Cat Stickers
They crossed our path and we lived to tell the tale. Check them out in the Street Arts Graphics Collection!
At First, the Guitar Was a “Women’s Instrument”
The history of the guitar shows that musical instruments have been gendered—but just how changes over time.
The Bizarre Marvels of Segundo de Chomón, Father of Spanish Cinema
Segundo de Chomón made “trick films” that experimented with color and temporality, influencing the surrealist work of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.
How Trumbull Park Exposed the Brutal Legacy of Segregation
Frank London Brown’s 1959 novel, which presents a powerful story of white supremacist hatred, has been selected for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
The Creepy Backstory to Horatio Alger’s Bootstrap Capitalism
In a famous essay, a scholar uncovered difficult truths about Alger, whose name has been associated with the "rags to riches" myth.